Monday, March 05, 2007

Ships, planes, and carbon emissions

The Guardian published some interesting numbers recently: shipping, the article says, accounts for 5% of global emissions of carbon dioxide. Now that's a lot - double the UK's total and more than all African countries combined. And even more alarming is the sector's possible growth rate: the industry estimates suggest emissions could rise by up to 75% in the next 15 to 20 years.

So why have airlines been getting all the stick (not least in this blog)? One possibility is that, while airlines currently only account for 2% of global emissions, the sector is also growing very rapidly- just think of how many flights you took in 1990 and how many you are planning for 2007. Estimates of growth vary, but numbers from the European Union, suggest a doubling in emissions from international flights between 2003 and 2012.

But there could be another reason, speculates Timothy Herzog of the World Resources Institute, which gets credit from me for generating large amounts of useful statistics on the environment. Tim points out that the airline industry is much more high profile than the shipping industry, despite the fact that shipping is underpins global trade. While we have to board the plane ourself when we go on holiday, it's easy to forget about the ships that brought us those pineapples from Africa and DVD players from Asia.

Another example is the high profile of the large aircraft manufacturers and airlines: Boeing, Airbus, United Airlines and British Airways are all household names. Now name a company with a similar profile that makes big boats or sells ocean passages? Anyone?

So the bottom line is that it's much easier to put pressure on the airline industry to make emissions cuts. But perhaps reports like these will turn the tide and put the focus on shipping too. Should it? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

I don't think we should be putting similar pressure on shipping as it is, in general, far more necessary than plane journeys, and far more efficient per kilogram of freight moved. In the same way that while trains do create greenhouse emissions, they are far more efficient than the equivalent number of lorries.

i dont think we should be putting too much pressure on shipping as the previous commentors said however every little helps and as ships are relatively low tech it would not be a huge effort to cut a significant amount off the emmisions caused by shipping.

While the point about emissions per ton of freight moved (and per distance moved) is crucial here, it is true that shipping could be more efficient - modern (wing-shaped) sail technology, for example, could reduce emissions and cost!Does anyone know the statistics comparing air, land and sea cargo for emissions per freight-ton per kilometer? Suppose you want to move freight from New York to Los Angeles; is it best to send by plane, truck, rail, or sea (via Panama)?

cheapest in what way AntiCitizenOne? cheapest dollar wise? cheapest carbon wise? or cheapest in terms of a calculation based on the true cost? i came across a very interesting piece of information recently that made the point that coal fired electricity's true cost is about $95 AUD/KWh, compared to the price we actually pay now which is about $40 AUD/KWh.

anyway, off topic. anonymous the second, good point, just because it doesn't contribute a lot overall, and especially compared to the work it does, doesn't mean shipping couldn't be more efficient in its use of fuel.

Why has everyone just started to seek out "polluters" instead of asking themselves, what CO2 actually is and does? Has anyone a figure of the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere? And how much of that percentage is caused by oceans, decomposing plants, animals, volcanoes? It is after all just about money and who will be selling the most in "eco-frinedly" technology, again leaving the third-world out. I am really worried that no-one really wants to save anything rather then to be on top of a hype. What is when humans are not contributing to global warming and therefore can not prevent it? Don't we learn anything from our history at all? Now to me, thats the real scare. sapere aude.

Given that it is too late to cut emissions anyway without doing some global cooling first, the question is pretty academic.

But dividing 99 per cent of the world's long-distance surface freight by 5 pc, versus dividing 1 per cent of the world's long-distance surface freight by 2 pc, makes it clear that shipping is already a far cleaner way to move goods than air.

We should obviously be campaigning for much more movement by sea before we try to restrict it. The incremental value of having 25 pc of air travellers switch back to crossing the Atlantic by six or seven day boat journeys, jet-lag-free, and probably using the Internet to keep up with work daily would be far bigger than any C02-cutting innovation we can hope to force on sea carriers.

As a guy who has spent 24 years in shipping, I find this a very interesting discussion! It is quite correct to think of containerships as being efficient in terms of use of fuel vs tons of freight moved. The latest Leviathan Class ship from Maersk Lines is a 14000 TEU vessel. THats 7000 40 ft containers on ONE ship. Highly, highly efficient.

However, even so, vessel operators and port authorities are working to eliminate pollution. Examples include efforts by the Los Angeles Port Authority to eliminate cruise and containerships from operating generators and engines while in port by providing clean electrical hook ups shore side. Also LA has efforts to have vessels arrive unpowered in the harbor by use of tugs to take them all the way to the quay.

New designs are aerodynamic and hydrodynamically sound. Fuel is used not only to propel the ship, but as BALLAST to steady it in the water. When fuel is expensive because of a weak dollar, carriers work extremely hard to conserve.

Shipping lines also powered the development of the double stack train and rail car. Moving twice as many containers stacked on a rail train as could be done previously.

Regarding Mark's idea of once again taking long journeys by sea instead of plane: only if they give us more leg room! Seriously, though: would it really be more energy efficient, since you'd have to give passengers much more space and amenities? And is there a way to quantify wasted time in terms of carbon footprint? (There ought to be.)

I think everyone's missing something here - multiplying the emissions (whether people go by car, rail or plane) by the number of people who do it! The Optimum Population Trust(www.optimumpopulation.org) says "If you take away the 1.4 billion population increase by 2050 which could be prevented if the world's mothers voluntarily reduced average family size statistically by half a child, road travel could be cut by 10,768 billion passenger-kilometres a year - the equivalent of driving round the world nearly 269 million times." So why are we all being asked to have even more babies?

Shipping should be hit hard. The detrimental effects from high levels of sulphur and particluates (not CO2) is causing high levels of premature deaths and huge increases in asthma percentages. Coastal regions are suffering badly from ship emissions - much worse then people living under flight paths. Ship emissions need to be reduced drastically - NOW !

I recall a Monbiot article which quoted figures to show that the amount of UK milk exports are roughly the same as the UK milk imports. This weird anomaly happens because there is more than one company, and they don't work together. A lot of this sort of trade could easily be eliminated by a state control/monitor of foreign trade. For a lot of other imports/exports we need to consider: are they necessary? Cheap consumer goods that break, more cars (we don't need any more, just fix the old ones & retrofit them with electric motors!) and so on. Before we make ships go cleaner, lets look at what they carry.And as for air travel (and some quantities of freight)... what about airships/zeppelins? Much less energy than airplanes! Much faster than sea-ships! Maybe New Scientist could run an investigation into their potential...

Hmmm, so why move it at all? Why not just build it complete near to where it's ultimately destined? Not only would you save all the co2 production but all the infrastructure necessary for all that movement.

"Missing The Point"In this era of globalisation madness we ship / fly materials and goods from one side of the planet to another in the name of lower prices at maximised profit. No matter what harm we are doing to this planet. Added to this we are depleting the regions of the world of the natural absorbers of for example CO2. Let us not forget CO2 is the flavour of the time and we seem to be forgetting many many more harmful substances.Why do we have to ship food from the Far East to North America? If ever a region of the world can feed itself it is North America.The answer is of course globalisation madness and corporate greed.

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